How to recover from a shitty morning in 20 minutes

Maybe you dropped your phone, or your boss yelled at you, or you got soaked on the way to work.

Now you feel frazzled or stressed or panicked or exhausted.

I’ve had plenty of mornings like these in the past couple of years. And I’ve tried dozens of ways to recover from a bad start to my day. Eventually, I learned that the harder you try, the more difficult it is.

That’s why the best way to recover from a shitty morning is to:

Do nothing.﻿

More precisely:

Find a location where you won’t be disturbed.

Set a 20-minute timer.

Silence your phone. (This is important!)

Close your eyes.

Do nothing.

By “do nothing” I mean: do not attempt to change anything about your experience.

Lie down on a couch, on the floor, or on a bed. Don’t move. Just lie there.

If you notice an itch, that’s okay. Or if your brain revisits a nasty conversation over and over again, that’s okay. If you fall asleep, that’s okay too. Don’t scratch that itch, don’t try to clear your thoughts, and don’t try to fall asleep.